I think we should show some solidarity to people committed to their beliefs and making a personal sacrifice, rather than undermining them by critiquing their approach.
Given that they’re both young men and the hunger strikes are occurring in the first world, it seems unlikely anyone will die. But it does seem likely they or their friends will read this thread.
Beyond that, the hunger strike is only on day 2 and is has already received a small amount of media coverage. Should they go viral then this one action alone will have a larger differential impact on reducing existential risk than most safety researchers will achieve in their entire careers.
This is surprising to hear on LessWrong, where we value truth without having to think of object-level reasons for why it is good to say true things. But on the object level: it would be very dangerous for a community to avoid saying true things because it is afraid of undermining someone’s sacrifice; this would lead to a lot of needless, and even net-negative, sacrifice, without mechanisms for self-correction. Like, if I ever do something stupid, please tell me (and everyone) that instead of respecting my sacrifice: I would not want others to repeat my mistakes.
(There are lots of ways to get media coverage and it’s not always good in expectation. If they go viral, in a good way/with a good message, I will somewhat change my mind.)
I think we should show some solidarity to people committed to their beliefs and making a personal sacrifice, rather than undermining them by critiquing their approach.
Given that they’re both young men and the hunger strikes are occurring in the first world, it seems unlikely anyone will die. But it does seem likely they or their friends will read this thread.
Beyond that, the hunger strike is only on day 2 and is has already received a small amount of media coverage. Should they go viral then this one action alone will have a larger differential impact on reducing existential risk than most safety researchers will achieve in their entire careers.
https://www.businessinsider.com/hunger-strike-deepmind-ai-threat-fears-agi-demis-hassabis-2025-9
This is surprising to hear on LessWrong, where we value truth without having to think of object-level reasons for why it is good to say true things. But on the object level: it would be very dangerous for a community to avoid saying true things because it is afraid of undermining someone’s sacrifice; this would lead to a lot of needless, and even net-negative, sacrifice, without mechanisms for self-correction. Like, if I ever do something stupid, please tell me (and everyone) that instead of respecting my sacrifice: I would not want others to repeat my mistakes.
(There are lots of ways to get media coverage and it’s not always good in expectation. If they go viral, in a good way/with a good message, I will somewhat change my mind.)